Hard Headed Woman
by wherefore-suchas
Summary: Chloe. Lex. Sordidville and romance of a sort. Things which are requited and unrequited.


**brief author's notes:** Thank you to everyone who reviewed my last story. I still find non-future Chlex pretty hard to write, but fun nonetheless. A somewhat sequel to _Telling_ having not anything to do with the CrazyLex developments recently. Mea culpa, as I'd like this to be more relevant. Also: not mine, never were, money made from this = zero dollars.

*******

**Hard-Headed Woman**

_They move so smooth but have no answers._

– Cat Stevens

If you know me, you'll know that I've got no overwhelming love for Emily Dickinson, but Clark's face is undeniably dressed for a very particular function. And there's a line of hers that leaps immediately to mind when he breezes into The Torch office and throws himself into a chair (my chair). Even if I don't particularly recall memorizing the line and I can't think of even one, tiny reason why I should know it at all.

Regardless of all that, you better bet your sweet Aunt Fanny Clark Kent's got a funeral in his brain. All of which I notice, process and file away without taking my eyes off the lightboard for more than ten seconds altogether. After all, it's the last issue of the year. I wouldn't want to mess it up by laying the pictures in crooked. There's no margin for error here people. It's only by some freakish joke of fate (small miracle even) that I should be utterly and completely hopeless at math, except for the part where I can size a picture in my sleep. To the micromillimeter. I kid you not.

Clark sighs heavily. Not a Lana-related noise, but maybe...

"We have to talk."

I swallow a laugh, tucking my smile firmly into the corners of my mouth. "Wow. Sounds dire. I guess I missed the part where we were dating." Once upon a time, that would've been too bitter for me to say. I smooth the edges of the picture onto the page and run the roller over top. Do you ever feel like you've become the worst imaginable version of yourself? Like you look in the mirror (or some other handy, sufficiently reflective surface) and it's all "Hel-LO Medusa!" while the snakes writhe all over your head.

Or maybe that's just me.

That's how it was about a million years ago with that whole Clark/Lana fiasco. The triangle naturally being the most hate-able geometric shape in nature. I mean, really! It's so tired. It's so predictable. It's so over. Because the continents shifted and dinosaurs stopped roaming the earth. I lay aside the page I've just finished and take another sheet from the stack on my right. The next picture shoots through the waxing machine, coming out all warm on the other end. I stick it in carefully, waiting for Clark to ante up. Meanwhile, my inner five year-old's throwing an impressive impatience-fueled temper tantrum. "C'mon! C'mon! Claaaark! Jeez!" My inner sailor has some choice descriptive words for the situation too, but I'm too much of a lady to say what they are. Uh huh. You betcha.

"Uh...Chloe...I..."

I can't for the sweet life of me think of why he should suddenly be so nervous, unless... Dear god. I see modern medicine has managed to perfect the whole "surgical removal of irony detectors" thing. Someone throw the poor, sweet boy a life-preserver. Since I'm the only one who seems to be around, I suppose it's all me. "I was just _kidding_, Clark," I tell him as gently as I can. I can hear the documentary narrator now: _"The ClarkKent in its natural environment is easily alarmed. We approach downwind for a rare look at this rare and exotic specimen. Farmboyicus Kansanensus."_

"Right." He laughs nervously, running a hand through his hair, tugging on the ends before letting go.

"Took me awhile, but I know you and Lana are..." Hmm. I know Clark and Lana are what? Eh. Not my relationship to sort out. On the list of "Things that are not my problem." Right under the Harlem Globetrotters. I shrug. "Even Pavlov's dogs learned eventually."

"Chloe, you're not..."

I hold up a hand. "Obviously you aren't here to discuss the finer points of operant conditioning, and I'm willing to abort my previous feeble attempt at humor, so what's up?"

Clark hands me the next flat with a smile. "I just wanted to know...I mean, it's not really any of my business...but what happened between you and Lex?"

"Oh." There's a point right when I hear the blood rushing in my ears and consider telling Clark _exactly_ what happened. How one of his best friends and my dad's boss and Smallville's resident shady character had let his defenses drop for one insane moment. How in that moment his lips just happened to be crushed on top of mine. I amuse myself trying to imagine how _that_ one would go over before deciding it's most definitely in the barrel - Niagra Falls category. So instead I click on my most innocent face. "Nothing really. He saved me from having a nice little campout with a cold-blooded killer. Don't think Dr. Marks would've been much of the weenie-roasting type, do you?"

"Chloe, this is serious!" Clark insists earnestly.

"Of course it is, Clark."

"Because that's not what Lex told me. That nothing happened."

Wait. What? Didn't realize there was a nor'easter in the forecast for the office today. I'm suddenly cold all over. But combined with that is a growing feeling of bizarrely calm anger. Butter wouldn't melt in my mouth. Not even a little bit. Because it all makes a horrible kind of sense. Two and a half years in town and Lex Luthor's big, deep, dark secret is that he's a _guy_. God. And the guyishness has just backfired on me, leaving me stuck with a mounting feeling of dread and ultra-mother hen mode Clark.

In all the confusion, I'd forgotten how _young_ Lex really is. The weight of the world makes anyone seem older, I guess. But maybe even reclusive billionaires have to have their locker room chatter? If I were staging the scene I wouldn't even have to go into specifics. Clark enters, carrying groceries or flowers or 60 pound bags of manure, and Lex greets him and "So, about Chloe Sullivan..." Everyone knows where this is going by now, right? It's all 1 + 1 = a giant pain, simultaneously targeting the neck and the ass. Fancy that. "What did he tell you?" I manage, working fiercely to keep any hint of wobble out of my voice.

I don't know why the whole thing should be so damn upsetting except that maybe there's a little tit for tat going on. Clark's got his secret to keep and now he knows mine too? It's unfair if he gets to have both without my knowing his in return. Even if nothing happened with Lex ever again, that conversation in my backyard was something that was only mine to know. I hadn't thought that Lex.... But then, I hadn't thought much at all I suppose.

"He said that you'd worked pretty closely." Clark's brow furrows.

Oh good, there go some of those stones from off my chest. For a second there it was beginning to feel just like I was being pressed to death. "Not through any effort on his part." I smile. "Mostly, I was on the receiving end of a bunch of fatherly-type lectures." That's it. All I have to do is sanitize it. "For a young guy, he's awfully tense. He really ought to invest in yoga or something." I briefly imagine Lex in yoga gear and bite the inside of my lip to keep from laughing.

"Okay." Clark's train of thought is definitely derailed for the time being. All routes are being redirected through Cleveland. "I just wondered because...well...no reason I guess. He had some nice things to say about you is all and I wondered."

Instantly, I'm alight with curiosity about those "nice things," only I can't ask without seeming too eager, right? Hell. "Nice things?" I'm concentrating very hard on the lightboard. The picture for my story: _Batboy Migrates to Smallville_. Not Wall of Weird for a change, but a fluffly snuffly slip of a thing on our school musical. I'd pulled for "Sweeney Todd" but "Batboy: The Musical" was almost as good.

"Yeah." Thank heavens for cluelessness. "He called you intriguing and charming."

I choke back a laugh. Lex'd called me that to my face once before only I'd pretty much decided since then that he was pulling my leg. "Charming?"

"Yeah."

"I wouldn't go that far." Snarky and prickly and overly-enthusiastic. Maybe effervescent on a good day. Never charming.

"I would," Clark ventures bashfully, like he's afraid I'll take it the wrong way, throw him to the floor and have my wicked way with him. Sad to say that I might have thought about that once or twice or ten thousand times before. "It's like you grow on people."

"Like a fungus? Some kind of lichen maybe?"

"Like a charming person!" Clark makes a disgusted noise and throws up his hands. "Forget it. I quit. I'll never understand girls if I live to be a hundred."

"Hand me the roller, Clark?" I open my palm to him. He takes it as the truce I mean it to be.

*** * ***

"So wait, _what_?" Chad is sitting crosslegged on my bed, squinting critically at the fresh black polish on his fingernails.

I crouch beside him on the floor and eye his hands along with him. "It's _black_, I know, but is it black enough?" He scowls at me. "I don't think light can escape the surface, okay? Done. Finito. Basta."

"You just want me to think about your problem instead. What was it?"

I sigh heavily and flop myself back onto the bed, bouncing Chad enough to get a angry little snort out of him, but not enough so my bedspread is in any danger from his nailpolish. "My _problem_ is Lex Luthor."

"Everyone's problem is Lex Luthor."

"Not like that."

"Oh." He looks at me hard. His face relaxes. Reshapes into something sympathetic that makes me want to tear my hair just a little. "I don't think you're really his type."

"I don't think you even know his type." Petulant because I know he's right, but I feel like arguing dammit.

Chad ticks off points on his fingers. "Victoria, Desiree..."

"Who was a meteor freak. Sex on a stick. Ergo: _everybody's_ type."

"Helen Bryce. Exhibits A, B and C. You need about four more inches in your legs and brown hair at least. Plus there's the whole evil thing."

Chad rests his head on my stomach, which is pretty uncomfortable only I'll die before I tell him that. "If you're not going to be helpful in any way, I see no point in continuing this discussion."

"You're just pissed because I'm not telling you what you want to hear."

"I'm just pissed because you're not telling me anything at all! You're being negatively useful at this point."

Chad pretends to stab himself in the heart and twists. "I didn't realize your motivations for befriending me were so mercenary and utilitarian." He smiles before adding, "Bitch."

"Back at'cha."

He sighs. "I'm bored as fuck and you've got all the warning signs of a class five angst storm coming on. Let's get the hell out of Dodge."

"Okay." I stretch the word. "Where to?"

"Metropolis? This weekend."

I lower my eyebrows and assess him critically. For Chad he's being positively chipper. Do I need to mention that it's downright creepy? "What's in Metropolis?"

Chad shrugs in that tense way that lets me know that he thinks what he's about to say will annoy me. "Club Zero?"

What's that Bogart line? Of all the things in all the world for him to say, he had to say that. Modified for my own use, naturally. "Club Zero's closed," I reply flatly. It was so long ago that I agreed to track down that information. Not that I wish I hadn't, but I figure there're only so many slings and arrows a person can take. What had Lex called himself? Smallville's prime suspect? No one knows how to toss up the protective sarcasm better than I do. No one except maybe him. Not that it's any of my damn problem. I can feel myself getting pissed. Because it's that old, horrible feeling that I thought I was oh-so-_done_ with. After Clark I passed a moratorium on unrequited. Only it's not done with me I guess. I don't want to think about it or care because I know for an absolute fact that he wouldn't give even a teensy tiny damn either way. Except for the part where I can't help myself from caring. Crap.

"Hey, Sputnik." Chad jabs me in the thigh with his elbow, which is about all he can do from his position on my lap. "Reenter the upper atmosphere for a minute, okay?"

"Forced analogy."

"I don't remember pretending to be a writer."

"Please. I know for a fact you've got a top-secret cache of weepy goth poetry hidden somewhere in your room." His horrified expression is enough to lift my mood a little and I stifle a laugh.

"Anything's better than angry feminist claptrap," he returns calmly.

"It's not...whatever." I jiggle my legs underneath his head.

"Funny, I don't remember putting money in the Magic Fingers."

I curl my left hand into a fist and wave it under his nose. "I'll show you some Magic Fingers if you don't get to the damn point already."

Chad sighs. "We never talk like we used to." A beat. "My point is, yes, Club Zero was closed, _bought_ and closed. Now reopened."

"So not Club Zero anymore?"

"Oblivion."

"Cute. Someone got a Thesaurus for Christmas."

"We going or what?"

I roll all my angst into a tight little ball. It's part of the new and improved Chloe Sullivan. When you put away childish things you can look back and the memories won't sting. "Try and stop me."

*** * ***

And that, my fine feathered friends, is how I ended up in the world's longest line on a muggy summer night. What I'm still struggling to comprehend is the eight million people who ended up coming along for the ride. I can't see Chad, but I can feel him. He's sulking. Right behind Lana and Clark and Pete and Pete's girlfriend, Jane. Seems like everyone was a little stir-crazy. The super-scary part of all this is how all of them, Lana and Clark especially, had these fake IDs that I knew _nothing_ about. I mean, if the world's tallest, most beautiful and most naive Boy Scout has a fake ID, maybe it really is hell/handbasket time.

I'm not worrying about this though. Especially when there are more pressing things on my mind. Like the fact that my skirt is riding up my legs at every opportunity. Like the fact that I'm getting claustrophobia standing in this line that's long like a long thing, except longer. I tug at my skirt and presto something, I'm right at the front.

Not to understate the case, but the club is, in a word: gorgeous. It's airy and open, in shades of red that seem to ripple into one another. The gold accents and low tables tucked into the corners give the whole place a luxurious feel. Big and small at the same time and about 5 billion miles away from the ultra-sleek "I know! Let's put chrome on _everything_!" Club Zero. I release a small breath. Not that I had any history in Club Zero, but Dad's marched me around to enough battlefields in my life so I can appreciate the lingering spirit in a place. It's bad Karma or evil Chi or something.

The music isn't anything I recognize, but it makes me want to move anyway. I can feel the bass in my stomach, beating along, and for the first time in what seems like forever, I smile. Reach back for Chad's hand and squeeze. He's amazing. It's amazing that we're here. And amazing how he becomes a different person in a place like this. One who immediately pulls me onto the dance floor when Lana, Clark, Pete and Jane drift off toward one of the corner tables. If I know them, and sometimes I doubt that a lot, they'll take their sweet time nesting in. Migrating to the fringes of the floor in half an hour or so. Chad pivots me smoothly. I add a laugh to my smile, throw my head back and lean into his hands. The music melts into pure house, closes over my head like water. I paddle around inside it. Chad's fingers skate lightly across my hips, right before he spins into the waiting arms of some pretty, young thing. Can't tell if the person's a boy or girl, but that's the thing about Chad: away from Smallville, he lets those lines blur.

Maybe it's that I'm too busy mulling over the restrictions inherent in small-town sexuality, or that I've played the graceful dancer for too long and the universe finally notices, but in any case, my foot comes down on someone's instep. Hard. With heel involved.

"Sorry. Sorry," I apologize immediately, even knowing that whatever I say will be swept away by the noise in the club.

There's a hand heavy on my shoulder, bracing against me for support. I look up at my victim. Is it possible to go simultaneously hot and cold? Because...yeah. He leans into me, practically brushing my earlobe with his mouth. "All mirrors aside, breaking a Luthor should constitute at _least_ seven years bad luck."

I struggle to shift his weight more evenly. There's a tiny opening in the crowd and I see Pete, Lana and Clark, but the selfish part of me doesn't like sharing. "Clark and Pete and Lana are over there," I point, "do you think you can make it?"

"My foot's in no serious danger of falling off." Only somehow we end up heading in the opposite direction. So I'm hot and cold and scared and happy and dancing and confused, but of course all of this is inside and what surfaces is a little smile at the sheer oddness of the situation. Which Lex notices once he settles at the table. "I don't have a penny."

No, not like he did last time. And that makes me smile bigger. Wider. My smile will swallow up the whole room and everyone will _know_ how it is I feel, even if I don't know why because I'm still working on how this all could've happened. "I think we're destined to meet casually through minor disasters. I owed you one."

Puzzled, which clears. "Coffee."

"Yeah. I had to throw that shirt away."

"Life is messy."

"So I've heard, Confucius."

Under the table, his fingertips brush lightly against my knee and then disappear. I freeze, head constricting. It was only a mistake. Nothing.

"I'm surprised to see you here."

"I could say the same thing. In fact, I just did."

"This place has a strict door policy, if I'm not mistaken."

"And you rarely are," I mutter. Only I guess he hears me anyhow because he fixes me with an amused look. "That's why god made fake IDs."

"Ah."

"Don't try to change the subject on me, Lex." My skin feels prickly. "This is some kind of masochistic, demon exorcism deal, isn't it?"

"Sometimes we move past youthful indiscretions." His voice is stern.

"Don't give me that pseudo-parental spiel. I could recite it from memory. You owe it to me not to bore me to death."

"I think you're forgetting whose size 8 heel-mark is on whose foot."

"Par for the course." I swear I can feel his hand hovering just above my skin. I swear I'm making all this up out of nothing more substantial than wishful thinking. "You're saying there isn't even an iota of history here for you?"

"I never said that." Have I mentioned the way his mouth curls when he's not doing anything at all? Like there's some joke hidden inside his head all day. Have I mentioned the tiny split over his lips? Have I mentioned how pathetic I find myself lately?

"It was implicit."

He shrugs. Any relationship we could have would be tucked into dark corners. Snatched moments on my way home from school. Interviews that go on just a little too long. I shake my head. There's no way around it that doesn't take a direct route through Sordidville. I've been before and damn if it's not a horrible place to spend your time. "Everyone's responsible for untangling their own lives."

Ah. That's interesting. "Closure."

"In the parlance of our times."

I swear, if I'd been drinking anything right then there would've been a definite spit-take moment. Because, really, who'd 've thought? "Tell me you didn't just quote _The Big Lebowski_."

"Clearly, you're out of your element, Chloe."

"That tears it. I'm hallucinating. Or I've fallen into some parallel dimension."

"Maybe you're hallucinating in a parallel dimension."

I scowl at him. "Not. Helping."

"I don't believe it's written that I have to spend all my time listening to Bach and reading the collected works of Cicero."

I poke him gently in the chest. "Especially since I happen to know you've got the largest collection of vintage Warrior Angel comics in this particular part of the country? I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The comic's awfully Greek though, isn't it? All those Big Themes. I mean, the writing isn't quite Sophocles but it's the spirit of the thing."

He gets this faraway, sugar-glazed expression on his face. His hand lands on my knee for good. Warm. So warm. I remember those little callouses from before. How I guessed that he got them from fencing. I forget how breathing is supposed to go.

Neither of us close our eyes, which is, frankly, eight different flavors of weird at least. Never thought I'd end up seeing so much of Lex's pupils. I figure it's another way of going toe to toe, because neither one of us are going to back down from the other. Or maybe it's just that neither one of us really trusts the other all that much. His mouth is warm and a little slippery with lip balm. Pepperminty. Lex ends it and I swallow my disappointment. Dark corners, after all. Why would I want a relationship that could only be crammed into dark corners?

"My secretary tells me you called about an interview last week."

Wait. What?

"Um, yeah, I guess I did. I'm doing a story about LexCorp's past donations to the school in connection with possible misappropriation of funds by the schoolboard."

Lex gives me a tiny smile. "Tenacious."

I grin back. "Like a damn pit bull."

"I'd like to give you that interview."

My stomach drops. Add equal parts excitement and dread. Frappe. "Oh. Great." Because y'know what else is great? That the border sign for Sordidville is looming up ahead and I keep puttering merrily towards it. I stretch my fingers and catch the edge of his cuff gently. He touches my hand and shrugs. There's a small hopelessness in it. We're stuck. What can I do? I swallow hard. "How's Wednesday for you?"

**fin.**


End file.
